Hollywood technology gives Sivaji superior imagery

Ranjikant's much hyped Sivaji: The Boss, which opens Friday, is the first Indian film to incorporate the latest 4K resolution technology that is used only on big-budget Hollywood films.

In India, 2K resolution for digital intermediate (DI) is the set standard. Around 400 of the 2,900 prints of Sivaji have been made in digital format by Prasad EFX, one of the largest digital post-production studios in India. The studio has colour graded and post-produced the film.

Till recently, digital grading in India was done on a small monitor or by a low-end projector and screen.

Major Hollywood studios, however, allow cinematographers to see images being graded in high resolution on the big screen. Detailed attention is thus paid to selectively colour grade smaller areas in a frame or shot.

Considering the superior imagery that has been cinematographed by KV Anand for Sivaji, the processor for the film, Prasad group, felt that 4K would do justice to the film by enhancing its digital image quality and flexibility in colour grading.

AVM, the producers of Sivaji, have also gone ahead with the process considering the advantage it would have despite an increase in the cost of production.

"By routing the entire film through the 4K pipeline for the DI process, we can be certain that none of the details available in the celluloid film are lost," Madhu of Prasad EFX said.

<b1>"Another advantage is that when we can scale up the images during the post and graphics processes, the image will not go soft or lead to any artefacts. As a 4K image has larger resolution, we can also have unlimited freedom in manipulating the colours during grading," he added.

"Our meticulously colour calibrated environment ensures that what the cinematographers see in our facility is what is actually seen by people in the theatres."